The West African National Secretariat (WANS) was a

Pan-Africanist Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...

movement founded by

Kwame Nkrumah Kwame Nkrumah (born 21 September 190927 April 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957. An in ...

, based in Britain. Nkrumah founded WANS in December 1945, immediately following the

Manchester Pan-African Congress The Pan-African Congress was a series of eight meetings, held in 1919 in Paris (1st Pan-African Congress), 1921 in London, Brussels and Paris (2nd Pan-African Congress), 1923 in London (3rd Pan-African Congress), 1927 in New York City (4th Pan-Afr ...

, becoming the new organisation's Secretary-General. Other founder members included

I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson (1894 – 10 May 1965) was a Sierra Leonean, British West African workers' leader, journalist, activist and politician. Born into a poor Creole family in British Sierra Leone, he emerged as a natural le ...

(who was elected as Chairman), Bankole Akpata,

Kojo Botsio Kojo Botsio (21 February 1916 – 6 February 2001) was a Ghanaian diplomat and politician. He studied in Britain, where he became the treasurer of the West African National Secretariat and an acting warden for the West African Students' Union. He ...

and Bankole Awooner-Renner (the first President). Many of its initial members were also members of the

West African Students' Union The West African Students' Union (WASU), founded in London, England, in 1925 and active into the 1960s,"History o ...

(WASU). WANS aimed to build a united movement throughout

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

for independence, on a platform of

anti-imperialism Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...

. Its view of West Africa was broad, and aimed to include countries as distant as

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

. A major congress was planned, but never came to fruition. Within WANS, Nkrumah organised a secret

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

group, known as "The Circle". This group worked closely with the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

. During 1946, WANS published five issues of a monthly journal, ''The New African'', containing articles in English, French and Belgian, on West African issues, but also incorporating stories from the '' Moscow New Times''. In September, WANS held a joint conference with WASU, which Nkrumah convinced

Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor (; ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal (1960–80). Ideologically an African socialist, he was the major theoretician o ...

and Sourou Migan Apithy to attend. WANS was considerably weakened after Nkrumah returned to Africa in 1947, and appears to have dissolved the following year.

References

Hakim Adi Hakim Adi is a British historian and scholar who specializes in African affairs. He is the first African-British historian to become a professor of history in the UK. He has written widely on Pan-Africanism and the modern political history of A ...

, ''West Africans in Britain: 1900-1960'', London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998, *Daryl Zizwe Poe, ''Kwame Nkrumah's Contribution to Pan-Africanism: An Afrocentric Analysis'', Routledge, 2003, {{ISBN, 978-0415946438 Politics of West Africa Defunct socialist parties in the United Kingdom Pan-Africanist organizations Organizations established in 1945 Pan-Africanism in the United Kingdom British West Africa